14 DAY TRIAL // This week, the death of 21-year-old Eloise Aimee Parry of Shrewsbury, UK, grabbed headlines. The young woman, a student at Glyndwr University, passed away after having taken one too many diet pills that she bought online.
As detailed in a statement issued by medical experts at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Eloise died because the diet pills pushed her metabolism into overdrive and triggered a fever spike. Eventually, her heart gave out.
How and why the pills killed Eloise Aimee Parry
The pills that the 21-year-old took hoping that they would help her lose weight contained a toxic compound called 2,4-dinitrophenol, or DNP. This compound has a history of being used as a pesticide and herbicide.
To further attest to this chemical’s toxicity, it must be said that, during World War I, DNP was used in combination with another compound to make armor-piercing shells and poisoned many of the workers handling it.
Specialists say that, when in the body, this chemical compound disrupts natural processes in cells, causing a lot of energy to be wasted in the form of heat. To compensate, the body starts producing more energy.
Experiments have shown that, when exposed to DNP, a person’s metabolism speeds up by about 50%. To keep up, the body begins to eat away at its fat reserves and weight loss happens.
Given its effects on the body, DNP might sound like the holy grail of weight loss. Still, as proven by Eloise Aimee Parry’s death, it really isn’t. Instead, it’s a compound that stands to cause organ failure and kill.
As mentioned, 21-year-old Eloise got the DNP-based diet pills that killed her online. She never talked to a specialist about them and didn’t research their potential side-effects until after having already taken a handful.
Which brings us to our topic of interest: why it’s never ever a good idea to trust pills, dietary supplements and other cocktails of chemicals that promise miraculous weight loss.
The body is hardwired to store fat
Except for the occasional two-headed lizard and six-legged goat, nature doesn’t do anything at random. The fact that our bodies love and adore storing fat isn’t their way of sabotaging us and our attempts to fit into the perfect size S outfit.
The body doesn’t care about fashion or what looks best on a magazine cover. It has a whole other agenda: keeping us alive. And it learned many millennia ago that, when it comes to survival, it’s always best to have something on the side, just in case times get tough.
For some reason, body fat is widely frowned upon these days. True, having too much of it can lead to medical complications, even shorten lifespan. Still, this does not change the fact that, to live long and prosper, packing a decent amount of body fat is necessary.
Interestingly, investigations carried out over the years have shown that fat isn’t just an energy reserve. Au contraire, the body relies on fat for temperature regulation, shock absorption, and even to maintain our skin and hair healthy.
So what is this rant getting at? That body fat isn’t something wicked and evil that we should get rid of at all costs. Millennia ago, the human body’s instinct to store fat helped our ancestors survive and, in doing so, made it possible for us to exist.
The thing is that, in those days, whatever fat got stored was lost during times of hunger. These days, food availability is no longer an issue. What this means is that the body simply accumulates fat, which often leads to obesity and all the trouble that comes with it.
Why it’s best to keep away from diet pills
Storing body fat might make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but in this day and age, thousands would do just about anything to keep this from happening. Besides, many love handles bearers are desperate to get rid of them.
Since demand and supply go together in perfect harmony, it should not surprise us that, what with so many people wanting to lose weight and keep it off, there’s a bonanza of dietary pills to pick and choose from. The ones you should stay away from are the borderline miraculous ones.
With such pills, you get one of the following options: they have no effect whatsoever, in which case they are a waste of money, or they do work and make people lose weight at a mind-bogglingly rapid pace, in which case you should definitely stay clear of them.
Supposing that they do work, and there is a lot of supposing to do, diet pills that promise to shrink you a couple of dress sizes in the time it would take to watch a “LOTR” marathon can only do so by hijacking the body’s natural functions.
Such pills essentially go to war with the body, and as proven by Eloise Aimee Parry’s untimely demise, there’s only so much tampering with the body can handle. You wouldn’t let a complete stranger rearrange your home, so why would you let diet pills mess with your body?
True, there are some diet pills that are approved by health authorities and that doctors prescribe to people who are so overweight that their health is in danger. The pills marketed online, on the other hand, are a clear example of pseudoscience, if not dangerous and potentially even deadly.
So what then is the best way to lose weight? Well, I hate to break it to you, but a combination of diet and exercise is still the best way to lose weight. It might take you a year to lose just one love handle, but your body will be forever grateful that you’re not pushing it.
No, you don’t have to go from eating fast food seven days a week to eating nothing but apples. Simply try replacing one of your daily meals with a healthier alternative. After a while, go ahead and replace yet another. Simply put, take baby steps and remember that perseverance is the key.